


bone of my bone flesh of my flesh

by yippiekiyay



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, if u saw me rename this no u didn't, well kind of idk broolwkjbdksjd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yippiekiyay/pseuds/yippiekiyay
Summary: Who knew leprechauns could grant wishes?
Relationships: Shadow Moon/Mad Sweeney (American Gods)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	bone of my bone flesh of my flesh

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't happen during any book or tv show events although I did take Mad Sweeney's show personality and leaned more toward book Shadow's personality we'll see if that comes across at all lmao enjoy!!

Shadow wraps his hands around the coffee cup. It’s too hot to drink, so he opts to wait. His eyes slide over the rest of the diner. Catches on the old couple in the corner taking bites off of each other’s plates, the young girl in the hoodie, hunched over and looking more dead than alive, the booth of three boys, making more noise than Shadow would’ve thought possible at so early in the morning. And, weirdly, Shadow gets a sense of deja vu.

He swings around to the booth behind him, “Hey, have we-” he starts, but Wednesday is over at the counter, sweet-talking some other young blonde woman. She’s wiping down the counter, paying more attention to Wednesday than her work, and accidentally knocks over a half-filled mug. She startles, apologizing, and hurriedly starts mopping it up. Wednesday pulls a handkerchief out of his jacket and starts cleaning it up for her.

The menu in Shadow’s hands pulls, and with it, his attention.

Mad Sweeney taps the top of the laminated menu, “Are you done? I’m ready to order.”

Shadow sighs, “Yeah, I guess. I’ll have the Tuesday special.” Sweeney nods, hurriedly snatches the menu from Shadow, and waves over a waitress. He lists his long order, tacking on “and one Tuesday special” at the end. The waitress tucks the menus under her arm, eyebrows raised.

“What about Wednesday?”

Sweeney waves a hand, “He’ll be fine,” he points back over to the waitress at the counter, “Plus, he’s busy anyway,” he leans in a bit, sneer painting his face, “Guarantee’ll be fucking in the corner of that bathroom over there in about five minutes.” He leans back, looking, almost longingly, at Wednesday and the woman.

He fidgets a lot, Mad Sweeney. Twists his elbow around to crack his back, sticks a leg out to attempt to trip a waiter walking by (who Sweeney winks at when he looks back), bites the skin around the nail of his thumb.

He never notices Shadow staring at him.

He grabs the salt shaker on their table, “Here, watch this,” He pours the salt onto the table, “This old Greek woman told me about this.” Sweeney stares intently at the salt, Shadow stares intently at the thinning of hair in the center of his head. Sweeney whistles, long and low, leaning back into his chair.

“What?”

Sweeney gestures at the hills and valleys of salt spread across the table, “The ridges are your trials and tribulations. The shape they take can tell you what exactly you’re facing. I didn’t ever learn what the shapes are. But, I can tell that you, Mr. Moon, have a hell of a lot of challenges facing you.”

Shadow smirks slightly, “Really? I didn’t know that.”

Mad sweeps the salt onto the floor, “Almost feel bad for you sometimes.” He’s thinking, spaced out, then shakes his head to rid himself of the thought.

The waitress comes back, plates lining her arm. She sets each down, counting them, “I think I forgot the waffles. I’ll be right back.”

Sweeney rubs his hands together, handing the plate of grits, sausages, and toast to Shadow. The food isn’t very good, but it is serviceable. Shadow hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he started eating. Sweeney swallows down his food; it’s like he hasn’t eaten in years, which may as well be true. The bowl of fruit that came with one of the meals sits untouched. Shadow points.

Sweeney makes a face around the bite he’s taken, swallows roughly, “Hate fruit. Too sweet. You can have it if you want.”

Shadow grabs a slice of orange, fits it into his mouth to suck the juice from it, leaving the flesh. Sweeney watches him with an indiscernible expression. They meet eyes. Shadow carefully places the slice onto his plate.

Sweeney is the first to break the gaze, takes a deep breath, pushes his last plate in front of him, “Well. I’m done. You?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Mad stands up, stretches, and walks toward the door.

“You going to pay?”

Mad scoffs, “‘Course not,” steps outside, yelling over his shoulder, “Wednesday’ll take care of it.”

The bell above the door rings loud in Shadow’s ears.

-

He doesn’t see it until it’s spotlighted in his headlights. Its head turns just as Shadow realizes it’s in front of him, and the next minute it’s thrown into the windshield. His foot touches the floor as he slams down the brake. His hands instinctively turn the wheel. He wonders, for a second, why the airbags don’t activate and remembers how old the car is. He can’t see anything for the mess of deer obstructing his view. He can feel the ground give way underneath them as they swerve into the woods hugging the road.

Sweeney holds tightly onto he and Wednesday’s headrests from the back seat. “Fuck you!” he screams when a tree clips the right mirror clean off.

The car hits a tree and turns, flipping over and over. The deer fell off somewhere behind them. Shadow’s head is slammed into the steering wheel, and he can’t tell if the lights of the car are out or if the pain exploding in his head caused him to go blind for a moment. His arm is wedged between his seat and the car door and stays like that when the car finally stops rolling. The passenger side is lifted slightly up in the air, held up by a rock or log.

Wednesday sighs, “Well,” and hops out of his seat without issue. He ducks back into the car, “Can you get out, Shadow?”

Shadow closes his eyes, trying to feel past some of the pain, “I don’t think so. I’m right up against this tree.”

Wednesday waves a hand at the equally battered Sweeney in the backseat, “Help me get him out.”

Sweeney glares at Wednesday, but he gets out and offers a hand to Shadow. It’s covered in blood; Shadow takes it anyway. When he stands, his vision is doubled. Wednesday takes notice, holds up a hand, “How many fingers am I holding up, my boy?”

Shadow tries to refocus, “Three?”

Wednesday and Mad share a glance, but it’s dismissed with, “Good enough!” And Wednesday makes his way, presumably, toward the road.

Shadow makes it two steps before throwing up his breakfast from that morning, which turned into a slurry in his stomach. Sweeney sniffs at him, makes a snide comment about his weak stomach, and jogs ahead of the other two.

The road seems miles away, no lights are visible, and the sound of cars is distant. Something in the air makes Shadow pull his jacket around him a little tighter.

They pass the deer closer to the road when the passing lights provide enough light to see for moments at a time. Its legs stick out at odd angles, blood pours from deep wounds, its antlers are broken off and jagged. Its eyes are the worst of all, vacant looking. The passing cars shine, making one reflect green. One leaks fluid and blood out of an empty socket. Shadow instinctively thinks of Wednesday.

Wednesday seems to have had a similar thought as he chuckles, “Kindred spirit…”

At his voice, the deer shivers. Then stands straight up on broken legs. It’s bigger than it had looked on the road. Shadow steps back.

“Attaboy!” Mad yells at it.

The deer whips its head around at him, sniffs the air in his direction. The blood dripping from his side has slowed; it falls with the consistency of molasses, now. It turns its head again to face Shadow. Stares straight at him with its one eye. It doesn’t have the functions to, but Shadow swears he sees it smile, or feels it, maybe. He feels it smile, and it causes a chill to come over him, colder and more violent than anything he had ever felt before. Then it leaves. Takes off into the woods on four broken legs. Shadow stares at the place where it disappeared.

Wednesday breaks the silence, “Let’s not stand around.” When he speaks, the cold does not go away.

-

She’s there, on the bed. She’s there, but it feels real. There’s no smell, there’s warmth in her eyes, the veins in her arms are blue like they’re supposed to be. She calls him puppy, and Shadow doesn’t feel like vomiting. Tears start flowing down his cheeks; she scoots over and wipes them away one by one.

“I don’t hate you,” he says instead of “I missed you.”

She looks into his eyes, her own welling up, “I don’t deserve you…”

“Can we go home now?” He asks, and she takes his head and cradles it to her chest. Shadow closes his eyes against her as she melts away.

The motel door rattles with his heavy footsteps. He doesn’t need to knock Shadow already knows he’s there. But he does anyway, disruptive as always. Shadow takes a moment to sit up, his head swimming. The clock on his bedside table blinks 3:44 AM. In the time it takes for him to reach the door, Sweeney knocks five more times.

Shadow throws his hands out in exasperation when he opens the door. Sweeney smiles big and wide and drunkenly. “Came here to punch you or something, forgot about the crash,” he collapses onto Shadow’s bed, accent exaggerated by the liquor.

“Tonight is not the-” Shadow starts.

“I can set it for you.”

“What?”  
“I can set your nose for you. I’ve done mine hundreds of times.”

Shadow pauses, stunned, “No? No, I’m not letting you do that.”

Sweeney is already in Shadow’s face, observing the damage.

“Sweeney, leave. C’mon, I’m tired.”

“Have a drink, sit down on that bed, and let me do this,” Sweeney is shoving a flask in his hand, pushing him onto the bed, and Shadow’s head is still swimming. Sweeney hovers over him, looking at his nose. He pats himself down, looking for something “fuck” he breathes softly, and Shadow smells something like turpentine on his breath. He grabs something off of the nightstand and looks Shadow in the eyes. They’re so close, Shadow can taste whatever it was that he drank, and it’s not pleasant.

“Now, you’re gonna wanna take a swig from that flask, because this is gonna hurt like a bitch.”

Shadow opens the flask, never breaking eye contact with Sweeney. He smells the liquid, and it’s awful, acrid, sharp enough to make him tear up. He holds his breath and knocks back the smallest of sips. His throat burns with fire, his jaw tightens, and he stamps his foot on the ground. Sweeney laughs heartily, claps Shadow on the back, “There we are! That’ll put some hair on your balls!”

Shadow starts to ask what was in it, but Sweeney is tilting his head back and shoving a motel pen up his nose. Shadow can’t form words. All he feels is hurt in the front of his skull. Sweeney mumbles as he works, saying, “There we are,” before twisting the pen, causing Shadow enough pain to blackout. He’s painfully, painfully lucid, however, and all he can do is scream, “Fuck!” when Sweeney removes it. His nose drips blood, and it takes a while for the pain to subside enough for him to open his eyes.

Sweeney holds out a handful of tissues, grin as big as ever. Shadow makes no move to grab them. Instead, choosing to take another sip, which hurts less this go-round.

“You’re an asshole, Mad Sweeney.”

Sweeney hums in agreement as he roughly shoves the tissues up Shadow’s nose. The tissues soak through, even with Sweeney instructing him to tilt his head back. Inevitably, Sweeney’s hands get covered in blood. He throws the tissues away, letting Shadow hold his own shirt to his nose instead. Sweeney places the pen back on the nightstand.

“Can you at least wash your hands before touching shit?”

“It’s your blood.” Like that made it any different.  
Sweeney walks and squats in front of Shadow, “Who knew you were such a bleeder.” Gently, he takes the shirt from Shadow’s face, watches the blood drip from his nose. He catches Shadow’s eye as he does it; swipes the pad of his thumb above his upper lip to catch the blood. He’s still staring at him when he places his thumb into his mouth, sucks on it. Shadow wants to ask what it tastes like. When Sweeney removes his thumb, no blood stains it.

Shadow dare not speak loudly, for fear of disturbing the air between them, “They say you can grant wishes.” Not a statement, not a question, a wish in and of itself.

“Yeah?”

Shadow nods.

“What would you wish for?” He knows already. They both know.

Shadow’s tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, Sweeney’s eyes are expectant.

The clock on the bedside table blinks 3:44 AM.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to experiment a little with liminal spaces and horror lmk if you liked this and thanks for reading iluuu


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